Chapter 24: The Boathouse

The Huntington boathouse sat at the end of a gravel drive on the water, with one window lit.

It was after one in the morning.

Margo had driven the whole way with both hands on the wheel.

Sam and I had followed her car, and nobody had said a word.

We left the cars by the wall and went down the drive together.

Margo's heels sank in the gravel.

She did not slow down.

Inside, the boathouse was a long timbered room with sailboats slung from the rafters and a fire going in a stone hearth.

Odile sat in a leather chair by the fire, in her coat and pearls, with her hands folded.

Beside her, at a desk, was a gray-haired woman with a stack of papers and a pen.

I knew her at once, because she had stood behind Odile's chair at the Sunday table for years.

She was Odile's assistant, the one whose J never closed.

Across the room, on a daybed with a plaid blanket pulled up to her chin, Posy was asleep.

Margo made a sound and went toward her, and the driver stepped into her path.

"She's fine," Odile said. "She was tired."

"She had a glass of milk and a story, and she fell asleep before the first page ended."

"Move," Margo said to the driver.

He looked at Odile.

Odile nodded.

He moved.

Margo dropped to her knees beside the daybed and put her hand on the girl's hair, and her whole back shook.

I stayed where I was, in the doorway with Sam beside me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start His Lifelong Pleas Got Nothing from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.